Fantasy Preview: Chicagoland

For all the furor over the cookie cutter tracks and how they are taking over stock car racing, the similarly configured 1.5-mile tracks still only account for eight of the 36 races that make up the schedule (22 percent). At that number, however, they are the largest block of races, and all of them host well-marketed, marquee events. If a driver can perform well on these tracks, he will give his sponsor great exposure.

The six similarly configured 1.5-mile tracks are all different in subtle ways: banking, transitions into the corners, the age of the surface and how that affects the tires, and so on, but are similar enough to provide a big pool of data with which to handicap the race.

To get the predictive data even smaller and more manageable, Chicagoland can be paired with the other brand new track. Kansas Speedway hosted its first Cup races in the same season as Chicagoland, and as a result can be looked at jointly to predict who will be strong at either. Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon can each find rationale for a great attitude when they come to this track alone, but when Kansas is factored into the equation the competition's morale fades.

Two other drivers join these three to dominate Chicagoland. Among them, five drivers combine to record all the victories on these two tracks: Harvick has two Chicago victories, Gordon has two Kansas victories and Newman has one on each. Harvick and Gordon's victories came in the first two races held on each track, while Newman swept them last year.

In addition, Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart join the three victors to account for 57% of the available top-fives (Gordon and Newman have five apiece, Stewart has three and Johnson and Harvick have two each) as well as 37 percent of the top-10s.

Both Gordon and Stewart have finished outside the top-five only once in the six races that have been run on the two newest tracks on the circuit.

The Favorites

Newman swept both new cookie-cutter tracks last year (Kansas and Chicago) after finishing runner-up to Gordon in the first two races at Kansas (one of which was in his pre-rookie season) and he scored a fifth at Chicagoland in his rookie year. This gives him five top-five finishes on these two tracks in five starts.

Stewart is the poster-child for 1.5-mile track consistency with 21 top-10 finishes in the last 23 races he has entered on these six racetracks. He is about the best example of how similar they behave.

In the last three races, he has been more likely to earn top-10s than top-fives, but he has something to prove after his latest contretemps at Infineon and there is no better place to redeem himself than on this style track. Before earning three finishes between seventh and ninth on the cookie-cutter tracks, Stewart strung five top-fives together, including a victory at Lowe's last fall.

Johnson has two top-fives in two Chicagoland starts. More importantly, he has nine top-fives and two victories in the last ten races, which means he has Big Mo on his side. On the similarly configured 1.5-mile tracks he has earned a top-10 finish in nine of his last ten starts, including one of the most dominant runs seen in a long time at Lowe's this spring.

He is very likely to keep that top-five streak alive this weekend, but in most salary cap games, he will be much too expensive to allow you to round out your roster with drivers capable of earning top-10 finishes.

Dark Horses

Kasey Kahne finished second or third in his first three cookie-cutter races, and then struggled to an 11th-place finish in his last outing at Lowe's. Nonetheless, he has never finished off the leaders lap on the similarly configured 1.5-mile tracks. He could be overlooked by your competition since he has only one top-10 and four top-15s in the last ten races, but there is no reason to think he has slowed any on this style of track.

Based on the performance of his Hendrick teammates at Chicago and Kansas as well as how strong he has been in recent weeks, Brian Vickers is another driver who can be expected to do well here. Both of the two newest NASCAR tracks have been very kind to Young Guns. Three of the Fab Five were in their freshman or sophomore seasons when they earned their top-fives.

Vickers has three top-10s and five top-15s in the past seven races and is preparing to give Kahne a run for Rookie of the Year honors. On the similarly configured 1.5-mile tracks, he earned finishes in the 20s in his first two races this year, then came back to run in the top-15 in the next two -- progression suggests he is ready for a top-10.

While it is too soon to say that he will be strong in the race, watch Mike Bliss this weekend. He will be driving a third Joe Gibbs car in what is probably a warm-up for the third team this organization will field next year. If he practices well on Saturday (i.e. anywhere in the top-15 based on average speeds), he could be a great way to stretch your salary cap and differentiate you from the other teams in your league.

Avoidance Principle

Rusty Wallace is heading in the wrong direction at Chicagoland. He came home 13th in the inaugural race in 2001, was 25th in 2002 and 32nd last year. He still has some room to slide and keep this streak alive. In the first three races run on this track, Wallace has yet to lead a single lap. His poor showing at Chicagoland is part of a bigger picture: on the similarly configured 1.5-mile tracks, Wallace has only one top-five and four top-10s in his last 13 attempts stretching back to the 2002 Atlanta fall race.

Ward Burton's long frustrating summer continues. With an average finish of 26.7 over three races, Chicagoland ranks fourth on the list of tracks that the Virginia native would rather not face. Burton has managed to secure only one top-10 finish in his last 18 attempts on 1.5-mile tracks, and both Chicagoland and Kansas Speedway were sites that were part of a four-race streak of grinding crashes that sent him home 41st or worse.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Dan Beaver's fantasy analysis appears weekly on the afternoon prior to Nextel Cup qualifying.

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" -- Steve Parker